From: The Global Warming Policy Foundation

By: Dr John Christy

Date: June 18, 2019

Putting Climate Change Claims to the Test

"When I grew up in the world of science, science was understood as a method of finding information. You would make a claim or a hypothesis, and then test that claim against independent data. If it failed, you rejected your claim and you went back and started over again. What I’ve found today is that if someone makes a claim about the climate, and someone like me falsifies that claim, rather than rejecting it, that person tends to just yell louder that their claim is right. They don’t look at what the contrary information might say."

"OK, so what are we talking about? We’re talking about how the climate responds to the emission of additional greenhouse gases caused by our combustion of fossil fuels. In terms of scale, and this is important, we want to know what the impact is on the climate, of an extra half a unit of forcing amongst total forcings that sum to over 100 units. So we’re trying to figure out what that signal is of an extra 0.5 of a unit." ...

Putting Climate Change Claims to the Test

The weather system which has developed into Hurricane Dorian was first identified as a tropical depression on August 24^th, 2019 approximately three quarters of the way from Guinea-Bissau on the northwest coast of Africa to Venezuela the northeast coast of South America. It was upgraded to a tropical storm later that same day. The system was then upgraded to a hurricane (Cat 1) on August 28^th and finally to a Cat 5 hurricane on September 1st.

The weather system has changed direction from West Northwest to Northwest and back to West Northwest. It is currently projected to change direction again to North Northwest, then to North and finally to Northeast over a period of 5 days. These projected changes of path would avoid landfall on the US East coast. The storm is also expected to weaken to Cat 1 over the same period.

Meteorologists do not know why this weather system became a tropical depression at this location at this time. They do not know why it developed into a tropical storm and then into a major hurricane. They do not understand why it is moving very slowly, or why it has made the multiple changes in direction to date, or why it would make the further changes in direction projected for the next several days.

The historical records of the storm tracks of similar hurricanes have not been particularly enlightening for this weather system, as shown below. The computer models have also been of limited value until very recently.

The broadly variant paths of past hurricanes of similar intensity, the significant range of modeled paths for the current system and the inability to predict system intensity suggest the highly questionable nature of computer-based attribution modeling studies used to calculate the affects of climate change on the path, speed and intensity of this and future similar storms.

History tells us that hurricanes will occur in the Atlantic basin, typically beginning in June and extending through November, with the greatest number of hurricanes occurring in September and October. However, the actual events are not predictable as to initiation, location, speed, intensity and likelihood of landfall. This is clearly illustrated by the recent 12-year long absence of land falling strong hurricanes in the US, followed by a very active hurricane season in 2018, neither of which was predicted.

There has been limited recent discussion of possible approaches to weakening hurricanes or causing them to disintegrate to avoid the effects of major landfalling hurricanes. This 60-year old idea has not matured into a successful approach with demonstrated positive results and probably will not due so.

Major hurricanes contain a huge amount of energy and mass, which can do enormous damage in the event of landfall. Hurricanes pre-existed anthropogenic climate change. We have no documented observations that demonstrate that hurricane occurrence or intensity has been affected by climate change, or would be affected by the cessation of climate change. While many have urged application of the Precautionary Principle to our approach climate change, the simple precaution of not building susceptible infrastructure in hurricane-prone areas has been largely ignored.

From: Watts Up With That?

By: Dr Paul Rossiter

Date: September 26 - October 6, 2019

Understanding the Climate Movement:

1. The Impotence of Science

2. Noble Cause Corruption

3. Follow the Money

"Like many other ethical and well-meaning scientists, I am becoming increasingly frustrated with the climate “science” debate. By resorting to rigorous measurement and analysis of real data, we have a reasonable (but perhaps naïve) expectation that the facts will determine the outcome of the AGW argument. And yet, despite the huge amount of information available, much of it through sites such as WUWT, it appears that the popular debate is clearly being won by the alarmists. Seemingly reputable organisations like IPCC, WHO, WWF, NASA, NOAA, CSIRO, EPA keep issuing reports heralding pending climate doom that appear to be at odds with any unbiased examination of the facts. And when they do, they are immediately picked up by an opportunistic mainstream press and amplified through social media, leading to widespread fear amongst the population, clearly evident in the recent “strikes for the climate”. Ill-informed adolescents become the new Messiahs, preaching the climate doom gospel and given standing ovations in the fact-free climate gab-fests. School children are now the upset victims of corporate (i.e. fossil fuel) greed and government stupidity." ...

1. The Impotence of Science

2. Noble Cause Corruption

3. Follow the Money

Weather changes on all time scales. Some weather changes are predictable in general terms: summer will be relatively warm; winter will be relatively cool. This change occurs every year, driven by the seasonal change in the angle of incidence of the solar radiation striking the earth. However, some summers and winters are relatively warmer or cooler than others. Also, the spring and fall transitions between summer and winter can vary significantly. The historical differences can be documented and essentially constitute the range and pattern of temperature variation and the average temperature over various 30-year climate periods. However, prediction of the seasonal and annual variations over the succeeding 30-year climate period is beyond our current ability.

Seasonal and annual weather are affected by anticipatable but unpredictable weather and climate events. These weather events include El Nino and La Nina, which are not currently predictable in either timing or intensity. They also include previously undocumented events, such as the formation of the warm “blob” in the northern Pacific. The climate events include the Pacific Decadal Oscillation and the Atlantic Multidecadal Oscillation, which transition between their warm and cool phases over relatively predictable cycles, though the timing of each transition is uncertain. These climate events have different global impacts when they are both in either their warm or cool phases and when they are in different phases.

Other common weather events including droughts and floods, tropical cyclones and tornadoes appear not to have documented impacts on global climate; and, there is no documented impact of global climate on these weather events, although attribution studies suggest that climate change has such an impact. Historical observation identifies areas which are susceptible to these weather events and the seasons in which they are most likely to occur. However, we are currently unable to predict the specific incidence, timing, path and intensity of tropical depressions and whether they will develop into tropical cyclones of some strength. We are also unable to predict the incidence, location, timing, duration and severity of droughts and floods. Tornadoes are even less predictable.

Our inability to predict tropical cyclones is highlighted by the recent 12 year “drought” of strong tropical cyclones striking the US, followed by a year in which 3 strong storms did so. Our inability to predict droughts is highlighted by the declarations of “permanent drought” in California and Texas, followed by the end of each of these droughts. Similarly, predictions of “the end of snow” were proven incorrect in numerous locations over this past winter, including in California. Similarly, predictions of an “ice-free Arctic” continue to be incorrect.

Climate is essentially the sum of weather over a 30-year period. Therefore, if we are largely unable to accurately predict weather events on longer time scales, it seems unlikely that we would be able to accurately predict climate (the sum of weather) over longer time scales. The fact that we have been unable to accurately predict global annual temperature over the 1981-2010 climate reference period supports the unlikelihood of accurate predictions in the longer term.

From: Forbes

By: Roger Pielke

Date: September 30, 2019

Net-Zero Carbon Dioxide Emissions By 2050 Requires A New Nuclear Power Plant Every Day

"More than a decade ago, Gwyn Prins and Steve Rayner characterized climate policy as an “auction of promises” in which politicians “vied to outbid each other with proposed emissions targets that were simply not achievable.” For instance, among Democrats competing for the presidency in 2020, several, including Joe Biden, have committed to achieving net-zero carbon dioxide emissions by 2050. Candidate Andrew Yang bid 2049, and Cory Booker topped that by offering 2045. Bernie Sanders has offered a 71% reduction by 2030.

One reason that we see this “auction of promises” is that the targets and timetables for emissions reductions are easy to state but difficult to comprehend. Here I’ll present what net-zero carbon dioxide emissions for 2050 actually means in terms of the rate of deployment of carbon-free energy and the coincident decommissioning of fossil fuel infrastructure." ...

Net-Zero Carbon Dioxide Emissions By 2050 Requires A New Nuclear Power Plant Every Day

The journal Nature Communications recently published a study (Discrepancy in scientific authority and media visibility of climate change scientists and contrarians) conducted by researchers at the University of California Merced. The authors defined groups of individuals as either Climate Change Scientists (CCS) or Climate Change Contrarians (CCC). They contend that, while both of these groups of individuals receive approximately the same exposure in the mainstream media, the growth of alternative media has resulted in members of the CCC group receiving approximately 50% greater exposure.

“These results demonstrate why climate scientists should increasingly exert their authority in scientific and public discourse, and why professional journalists and editors should adjust the disproportionate attention given to contrarians.“

The authors begin from the presumption that: “the 2–3% of researchers unconvinced by evidence for anthropogenic CC were not only small in group size but also had substantially lower levels of authority in the CC literature(REF 10), essentially the Skeptical Science study assertion. The study focuses on: “on a select set of contrarians who have publicly and repeatedly demonstrated their adamant counterposition on CC issues(REF 12) —as extensively documented by the DeSmog project (DeSmogblog.com), a longstanding effort to document climate disinformation efforts associated with numerous contrarian institutions and individual actors.

The UC Merced press release announcing the study quotes one of the co-authors of the study as follows: “Most of the contrarians are not scientists, and the ones who are have very thin credentials. They are not in the same league with top scientists. They aren’t even in the league of the average career climate scientist.” Dr. Judith Curry provided a sub-list of “prominent, currently active climate scientists” from whom she has learned. Dr. Curry notes that this list of climate science ‘contrarians’ is heavily populated by experts in climate dynamics, i.e. how the climate system actually works.

I have prepared a list of skeptical climate scientists whose names appear frequently in the public press. I have listed the universities from which they received their doctorates, the global ranking of those universities, the scientific focus of their doctorates, the universities at which they are or have been employed and the global ranking of those universities.

I doubt that any of those listed could be accurately described as having “very thin credentials”, especially the Emeritus (E) chaired professors from top ten universities.

The reliance of the studies authors on sources such a Skeptical Science and DeSmog and the use of terms such as “disinformation” and “deniers” says much about the study, none of it good.

From: The Heartland Daily Podcast

Guest: Dr. Ross McKittrick

Date: September 17, 2019

Finding Fault in the Hockey Stick Podcast

"Dr. Ross McKittrick of the University of Guelph, Canada, is a professor of economics who got interested in the climate debate after looking over satellite data. He found the climate community very unresponsive and went on his own journey to discover what was up.

He, alongside Steve McInyre, challenged the famous Hockey Stick paper. Listen in to hear his analysis and why you ought not trust the fraud. Models have to be accurate in their reporting without adjustment by climate pushers."

Finding Fault in the Hockey Stick Podcast

If a climate scientist produces a climate science research result and no one hears about it, is it still climate science?

Concerted efforts by members of the consensed climate science community to enforce the climate change orthodoxy became obvious with the first release of the Climategate e-mails ten years ago, though these efforts have likely been ongoing far longer. Prior to Climategate, these efforts were conducted in secrecy. However, since then, the veil of secrecy has been pulled back progressively, revealing “the man behind the curtain”, to borrow a phrase from the Wizard of Oz.

The early efforts included restricting inclusion of skeptical research in the IPCC process, discouraging scientific journals from publishing skeptical research, demanding the firing of editors who approved skeptical papers for publication, not submitting orthodox research results to journals which published skeptical papers, providing unjustifiably negative peer review responses, refusing to act as peer reviewers for skeptical papers, attempting to have skeptics doctoral degrees revoked and agitating to have government-employed skeptics removed from their position. These efforts were successful to some degree.

The more recent efforts include provoked information demands from senators and congresspersons for voluminous information about the funding and associations and publications of skeptical scientists from the scientists and their employers, failure to include skeptical scientists in requests for proposals, summary rejection of skeptical scientist’s proposals and failure to publicize skeptical results.

The media have now become actively involved in protecting and defending climate orthodoxy by refusing to invite skeptical scientists to appear on network programs, refusing to publish opinion pieces by climate skeptics, refusing to publish skeptical letters to the editor.

Internet search engines have participated in these efforts by focusing their first search responses on results which conform to the current climate orthodoxy. Searches of climate scientists who accept the consensus return listings of research results, while searches of skeptical climate scientists return a high percentage of critical evaluations by organizations supportive of the climate orthodoxy.

Most recently, Nature Communications published a study by a university team identifying and demeaning skeptical climate scientists and other skeptics, using a collection of poorly identified and defined criteria. Several of the identified “deniers” have demanded withdrawal of the study, retractions in the press and personal apologies from the research team, the university communications department and other participants. Potential legal action has been threatened if the above actions are not forthcoming.

Perhaps the most egregious media effort is being coordinated by the Columbia Journalism Review, which is calling upon media outlets to devote a week to focused climate coverage this September. This is intended to be a propaganda campaign in favor of the consensus climate change position and agitation for immediate, dramatic action to control climate change.

“Our ask of you is simple: commit to a week of focused climate coverage this September. We are organizing news outlets across the US and abroad—online and print, TV and audio, large and small—to run seven days of climate stories from September 16 through the climate summit UN Secretary General Antonio Guterres hosts in New York September 23. The stories you run are up to you, though we can offer ideas and background information and connect outlets looking for content with content providers looking for outlets.”

There will certainly be no support for skeptical positions being presented as part of this focused climate coverage. The purpose is not to inform but to incite.

From: Climate Change Dispatch

By: Ferdinand Bardamu

Date: September 17, 2019

Climate Change Hysteria: An Excuse To Redistribute Wealth And Destroy The West

"The “Church of Climate Change” demands that Western nations impose restrictions on industrial CO2 emissions, encouraging them to squander billions on unreliable “green” technologies and renewable sources of energy.

They continue to ignore the one policy that has significantly increased atmospheric CO2 levels in the last few decades, generating hundreds of millions of metric tons of the stuff annually: mass third-world immigration (see Kolankiewicz and Camarota, 2008).

If the IPCC were objective, it would demand an end to mass immigration instead of more carbon taxes and emissions trading.

Such indifference in the face of the evidence shows that they care more about racially dispossessing whites than they do about “saving the planet.”

So what is the ulterior motive? To further understand what this may be, we must examine the career of Canadian businessman Maurice Strong (1929–2015).

Thanks to his tireless “lobbying behind the scenes,” the U.N. has played a key role in forging a “consensus” on man-made global warming. In a sense, he was the right man at the right time." ...

Climate Change Hysteria: An Excuse To Redistribute Wealth And Destroy The West

The World Meteorological Organization (WMO) recently announced that July 2019 was the warmest July on record. This assessment was based on “adjusted” data provided by NOAA. The WMO attributed the record to climate change driven by anthropogenic CO2 emissions and suggested that it was consistent with what is to be expected from climate change.

Dr. Roy Spencer responded to the WMO announcement, suggesting that July 2019 was not the warmest July ever, but probably the fourth warmest. Spencer stated that these announcements were based on “adjusted” data which shared three major problems: the Urban Heat Island (UHI) effect; inconsistent sea surface temperature measurement approaches; and, incomplete geographic coverage.

Spencer suggested that Global Reanalysis temperature sets would be a more appropriate basis upon which to base pronouncements regarding global temperature. The global reanalyses are only available over the most recent 40 years, rather than the 100+ year records available from the near-surface thermometer records, since they rely in part on the satellite temperature record.

However, Spencer later compared three global reanalysis temperature sets and determined that the ERA5 reanalysis used by the WMO produces a global temperature estimate approximately 0.2°C higher than the other two reanalysis products. While a difference of 0.2° might seem minimal, this difference is between temperature anomaly products and the estimated total global annual average temperature anomaly over the period ranges from 0.38 to 0.94°C, so the difference is approximately 20-50%.

The ERA5 reanalysis also portrays a rate of increase of global average temperature 0.04-0.05°C per decade more rapid than the other two reanalysis products and 0.05°C more rapid than the UAH satellite data record. Again, while 0.05°C per decade might seem minimal, the difference is between temperature anomaly reanalysis products and represents a difference of approximately 38% compared with both the CFSv2 reanalysis product produced by the NOAA National Center for Environmental Prediction and the satellite record produced by UAH.

These differences between temperature reanalysis products are obviously very significant. Perhaps more significant is the fact that we do not know if any of these reanalysis products is accurate. They represent merely best estimates of the temperature anomaly by each of their producers, based on the agglomeration of measurements provided by numerous sources.

In a recent news release, NASA GISS claimed that their temperature anomaly product, GISSTEMP, was accurate to 0.05°C in recent decades, essentially the period over which the reanalysis products have been available. This would suggest that GISSTEMP accuracy is approximately twice as accurate as the average of the temperature reanalysis products, though that cannot be proven.

It is interesting to compare the temperature anomaly estimates from the various producers over the same time period as the temperature reanalyses, or 1979 to present.

                                NASA GISSTEMP                              0.94°C

                                NOAA NCDC                       0.95°C

                                HadCRUT 4                                          0.71°C

                                RSS MSU                                              0.71°C

                                UAH                                                       0.38°C

The first three listed anomalies are based on near-surface temperature measurements. Collectively, they average 0.87 +0.08/-0.16°C. This is a large and very significant range. The final two listed anomalies are satellite-based measurements. They average 0.54 +/- 0.16°C, which is also a large and very significant range. Obviously, not all of these global temperature anomaly estimates can be correct; and, it is not certain that any of them is correct.

Such is the status of the “settled science” of global annual temperature anomaly measurement.

From: Watts Up With That?

By: Pat Frank

Date: September 7, 2019

Propagation of Error and the Reliability of Global Air Temperature Projections, Mark II.

... "Climate modelers are evidently not trained in the scientific method. They are not trained to be scientists. They are not scientists. They are apparently not trained to evaluate the physical or predictive reliability of their own models. They do not manifest the attention to physical reasoning demanded by good scientific practice. In my prior experience they are actively hostile to any demonstration of that diagnosis.

In their hands, climate modeling has become a kind of subjectivist narrative, in the manner of the critical theory pseudo-scholarship that has so disfigured the academic Humanities and Sociology Departments, and that has actively promoted so much social strife. Call it Critical Global Warming Theory. Subjectivist narratives assume what should be proved (CO2 emissions equate directly to sensible heat), their assumptions have the weight of evidence (CO2 and temperature, see?), and every study is confirmatory (it’s worse than we thought)." ...

Propagation of Error and the Reliability of Global Air Temperature Projections, Mark II.

NASA GISS recently issued a news release regarding the accuracy of their GISTEMP near-surface temperature anomaly product which is discussed here (GISSTEMP Accuracy). This raised questions about the accuracy of the sea surface temperature anomaly products.

NOAA NCDC focused attention on the sea surface temperature anomaly in the Summer of 2015 with the accelerated release of Karl et al 2015, (ERSST.v4) intended to debunk the idea that there had been a global warming “pause” prior to the climate conference in Paris. This revision to NCDC’s ERSST increased the calculated SST anomaly of approximately 0.6°C (0.92°F) by approximately 0.08°C (0.10°F), or approximately 13%. NCDC has since released ERSST.v5, which reduced the calculated SST anomaly by 0.10°C (0.18°F) below ERSST.v4 and 0.02°C (0.03°F) below ERSST.v3. However, in the process, NCDC increased the rate of increase of SST by a factor of 2.5.

NCDC currently calculates the SST anomaly as 0.8°C. HadSST3 currently calculates the SST anomaly at approximately 0.55°C, while UAH shows the anomaly as 0.45°C. This is a very broad range of values for temperature anomalies which are reported to two decimal place accuracy. The temperatures measured by the Argo Buoys are 0.15-0.45°C lower than the calculated global averages. The difference between the Argo temperatures are smallest compared with the UAH values and greatest compared with the NCDC values. Both ERSST and HadSST use a combination of temperature measurements collected by ships, using various measuring methods, and temperatures measured by the Argo buoys. UAH uses satellite measurements. (Source)

NASA GISS stated that their analysis demonstrated that the “the resulting trends are more robust than what can be accounted for by any uncertainty in the data or methods”. However, there is no real question that the globe is experiencing a warming trend. Rather the questions revolve around the actual magnitude of the warming, the historical rate of warming and the potential future rate and magnitude of the warming. While NASA GISS currently estimates the global temperature anomaly as 0.90°C, HadCRUT estimates the anomaly as 0.70°C and UAH calculates the anomaly as 0.38°C. This is a substantial range of values for anomalies reported to two decimal place accuracy

The graph above from NCDC displays significant uncertainty regarding the magnitude and rate of warming for the period shown. The comparisons with HadSST and UAH display even greater uncertainty regarding the magnitude of the warming of the world’s oceans.

The issues with the land surface temperatures confirm the desirability of establishing a global land surface climate fiducial reference measurements network. The issues with the sea surface temperatures suggest the desirability of establishing a global sea surface temperature fiducial reference measurements network as well. Global temperature measurement has been fraught with inaccurate data, data “adjustments” and data “infilling” for far too long. There is no excuse for such casual treatment of documentation of what some describe as an existential threat to humanity.

However, as serious as the issues with temperature measurement appear to be, the issues with the models used to project potential future temperatures are both far more serious and far more vital.

By: Clear Energy Alliance

The NASA Goddard Institute for Space Studies recently issued a news release regarding new studies of the accuracy of the GISTEMP global temperature anomaly product. Based on the results of these studies, NASA GISS currently estimates that their estimates of the estimated global annual average near-surface temperature is “ are likely accurate to within 0.09 degrees Fahrenheit (0.05 degrees Celsius) in recent decades, and 0.27 degrees Fahrenheit (0.15 degrees C) at the beginning of the nearly 140-year record”.

This news release is interesting on several levels; and, it appears to raise more questions than it answers. The release identifies the estimated global average temperature increase since 1880 at 2°F, ignoring any “significant” decimal places. The estimated two “significant” decimal place accuracy of 0.09ºF over recent decades, conventionally presented as 2+/- 0.09°F, is approximately +/- 5%. The estimated two “significant” decimal place accuracy of 0.27°F at the beginning of the temperature anomaly record, conventionally presented as 0+/-0.27°F, represents an undefined percentage error.

Estimating the accuracy of an estimated temperature anomaly record requires comparison to an established factual temperature anomaly record, in this case a temperature anomaly record of at least two decimal place accuracy. Unfortunately no such established factual temperature anomaly record exists. NASA GISS does not state the temperature anomaly record used for its GISTEMP accuracy estimates in the news release.

NASA GISS does reference a comparison to the surface temperature record provided by the AIRS instrument aboard the NASA Aqua satellite. However, the AIRS instrument measure surface temperature, rather than the air temperature approximately 2 meters above the surface. Therefore, while AIRS might be useful for confirming trends, it is unsuited to verifying measurements. The AIRS comparison is only applicable to the period since 2003, when the AIRS instrument was placed into orbit.

NASA GISS did not mention whether it had compared the GISTEMP temperature record for the contiguous United States with the temperature record provided by the US Climate Reference Network over the period for which USCRN data are available. While this is neither a long nor a global record, it is a highly accurate, unadjusted near-surface temperature record which could have been used to “ground truth” the GISTEMP estimate for the contiguous United States for the same period.

It should be noted that NASA GISS produces GISTEMP using “adjusted” temperatures provided by NOAA; and, that NASA GISS has ‘readjusted” these “adjusted” temperatures numerous times. The graph below shows plots of the GISTEMP global annual temperature anomaly presented in three different years over the past 35 years. Note that the anomaly estimates have been reduced in the early years and increased in the later years of the temperature record. The cumulative effect of these “readjustments” increased the reported global temperature anomaly over the period by approximately 0.4°C (~0.7°F). These “readjustments” represent approximately one third of the total reported anomaly estimate over the period.

The issues with GISTEMP point again to the desirability of establishing a global land surface climate fiducial reference measurements network.

By: Clear Energy Alliance